Re-evaluating the paradigm of early free flap coverage in lower extremity trauma.

Early free flap coverage in lower extremity trauma is a practice largely supported by research that may be outdated and is frequently impractical due to logistics, resuscitation efforts, and associated injuries. Our objective was to re-evaluate this paradigm to determine whether reconstructive timing impacts outcome in modern clinical practice. We reviewed 60 free flaps for traumatic lower extremity coverage from December 2005 to December 2010 by the plastic surgery service at an academic medical center.

Aesthetic and technical refinements in latissimus dorsi implant breast reconstruction: a 15-year experience.

Background: The latissimus dorsi myocutaneous flap and implant breast reconstruction procedure has undergone many refinements over its lifetime. In fact, the authors have made many aesthetic and technical refinements to their own approach to breast reconstruction.

Objectives: The authors review the historical progression of latissimus flap and breast reconstruction techniques and compare these to their own 15-year experience.

A new generation of stable, nonantibiotic, low-copy-number plasmids improves immune responses to foreign antigens in Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi live vectors.

We hypothesized that adequately engineered attenuated Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi strains can serve as multivalent mucosal live vector vaccines to immunize against unrelated human pathogens. Toward this ultimate goal, we have developed a novel genetic stabilization system for antigen-expressing plasmids, engineered to encode the single-stranded binding protein (SSB), an essential protein involved in DNA metabolism which was deleted from the live vector chromosome. We utilized full-length protective antigen (PA83) of anthrax toxin from Bacillus anthracis as a foreign antigen and expressed PA83 as a fusion with the ClyA export protein, which allows export of ClyA-PA83 to the surface of S.